"Did you have fun at the ComiCon convention?" Jessica asked through the door to her eleven year old son.
"Did you stay there all day?" Changing tactics.
Her son didn't answer. He hid behind the wooden frame of the bathroom door and enclosed himself in his knees. He needed his father so much right then and memories flooded his brain in those thoughts. He saw the signature jet black quiff, the small smile, the hazel eyes that he inherited and the warm glow in his skin. He needed to have his father hold him and kiss his head, telling him that everything was okay.
"Baby, are you okay?"
He covered his ears. He didn't want his mother. He wanted Zayn. More than anything in that moment, he wanted to lay in his father's arms watching cartoons on a Sunday morning. He missed how much his father understood him when no one could. The ice cream that he would wake him up late at night to share and the food fights that would erupt when they baked Jessica a cake for every occasion possible.
"Landon, please answer me," the small tears and desperation was audible in her frail voice.
"Why did you come here?" Landon spoke softly.
"To tell you.. that I love you."
They stood in silence. Both not knowing what the next move would be.
He waited. He waited until she would leave. He waited for her to realize that there was wasn't going to be an answer for her. He was hurting and he waited for her to realize.
Jessica crept away from the door until she saw a shadow cradling under door frame. She walked back quietly and scrunched down a safe distance away from the door. Her back hunched over her knees and arms, with her son in an identical position on the other end. She heard the small boyish whisper of his words leave his lips.
"I love you, too."
The air carried his words over and she scoot with her back against the wall. She cried silent tears as her son gave her more than she expected.
***
Landon crept over to his mother's side of the bed. The separation wasn't necessary, but she needed to feel like Zayn could possibly come back and that it would all be a horrible nightmare. Her son barely spoke to her and she felt alone. Landon rubbed his hand along his mother's face in an effort to wake her up.
"Landon, what's wrong?" She jumped awake as if on auto pilot.
"Are you sure that you love me?" He asked curiously.
"I've never been so sure of something in my life." The words rolled so surely off her tongue. Being his mother was a position that she would never give up or question.
"Then promise me that you won't bury me."
"What are you talking about, kid?" She was clearly confused by his words.
"When I die, don't bury me."
"You're not about to die. You're going to lie a long and healthy life."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I do." She spoke matter-of-factly.
"Dad didn't think that he would die that day, but he did! You don't know anything." His voice escalating rapidly.
"Talk to me. What's wrong?" Remaining as calm as she possibly could.
"Bury me in one of those mausoleum thingys! "
"Stop saying that! You aren't going to die." The frustrated nature in her was becoming extensive. Jessica couldn't bear the thought of not having the only living creation of her and Zayn vanish from her presence. Her heart couldn't even take the thought of it. Landon took on with the Palermo sass and stomped around her room furiously as if he was a volcano waiting to erupt.
"You will not leave this room, mister!" That command was well disobeyed.
"You don't know anything! You buried an empty box!"
"I know I did!" She screamed, defensive of her actions as the feuding pair entered the kitchen.
"You don't know anything!"
"Stop saying that!"
"You don't know anything about atoms and molecules. For all you know he could be apart of the Pakistani grass from his waste and debris!"
"That is enough, young man!" That was too far in her book.
"Or even apart of dog shit in New York City!"
"No more!"
"Excuse me, dog feces!"
"Stop talking about him that way!"
"Why would you do that to my father?! That doesn't make sense!"
"It doesn't have to make sense!" Landon covered his ears at his mother's words.
"Everything has to make sense!" He spoke, clearly not understanding.
"I did it for you! And I did it for me! Yes, I know that his body wasn't in there, but we both needed closure! I don't know why my husband is dead and my daughter got cancer! I don't know why a man bombed his plane! But I do know that we're here and we are here for a reason," as she approached her son and peeled his hands off of his ears.
"I know this hurts, bud," she crouched down and spoke at his level. "It hurts me more that you'll ever know. But I needed to put that casket in the ground to know that I could finally say goodbye and so could you."
She saw the rage building in his eyes and walked to her room before he erupted.
Jessica clutched the embroidered Halston robe that she bought Zayn before the kids were born. If she smelled hard enough, she could still faintly smell his smell. If there was a time that she needed that, it was right in that moment. Jess sat on the edge of her pure white bed, the same duvet that she had when she was expecting Zayn to come home that day. She ran her fingers across the name stitched into the fluffy cashmere. Zayn Malik. She heard cans flying across the kitchen and a yell that sounded similar to Zayn's. She subjected herself back to the time when Zayn lunged a lamp across the room at Preston, just to fight for his love for her. It was the little fighting Malik inside of Landon and she knew that it would get better in time.
If only Zayn was there.
Sometimes she just knew that she couldn't help him. Jessica was taking on a job that they signed up for together and it felt like she was failing. The racket stopped as a couple of tears slid down her face. Small, eleven- year old footsteps were approaching and she knew that he was there for his closing words. She felt like the biggest disappointment. She loved her son to hell and back. She was willing to do anything for him, but it was just the fact of expressing that to him. Her emotions were in a whirlwind in those days, that she didn't really know what to express and when.
All she knew was that, he was all that she had and she loved him without a doubt.
The door opened and his clothes were disheveled.
"I wish it was you on that plane instead of him."
The words hit her like a ton of bricks as she cried in the inside. It wasn't as if she was surprised, she thought of the scenario herself countless times. She didn't even realize the flood coming out of her eyes. The brightness of her face probably gave off the essence of Rudolph in the dimly illuminated room.
"So do I," her voice cracked as she spoke. She would give her position up in a heartbeat if it meant making her son happier.
He looked up at her as she twiddled with her fingers. The curious nature running through his mind. He placed a hand on her fingers, just the way that Zayn would and she felt the tears fall more freely.
"I didn't mean that, Mommy."
"Yes, you did."
He joined her on the bed and laid his head on her breast as she clutched his close to her body. His silky hair that felt identical to Zayn almost made her breakdown. She ran her fingers through it as she rocked his body side to side, in sync with her own.
She sang her little Malik's favorite, Spanish lullaby through her tears as his tears fell with hers.
Un elefantes se columpiaba
Sobre la tela de una araña
Y como vio que resistia
Fue a llamar otro elefante
Dos elefantes se columpiaba
Sobre la tela de una araña
Y como vieron que resistia
Fueron a llamar otro elefante
Tres elefantes
The memories were flooding his adolescent mind of his mother teaching Zayn to sing that. He loved the sound of her voice, but it made him happiest when she and Zayn sang it together.
He joined voices with her as he played with a strand of hair that went just above Jessica's bosom. He rolled it in his fingers as he sang the nursery rhyme from memory. He knew that she was hurting and she understood that he was doing the same. They were both grieving and their hearts just couldn't accept that loss. When Isabella left, Zayn was their rock through it all. Now there were just two lonely hearts in the Malik households.
She saw her child drifting to sleep and she moved his body to lay alongside hers. Jessica reached over and turned off the light that inhabited closest to her. She laid her body to face his and she studied the features that were maturing in his face.
"I love you more that you'll ever understand, my beautiful baby boy. Landon Javadd Reeve Malik, you're the only thing I live for anymore," she whispered as she rubbed his earlobe the way she always did when he was stressed out or when he just needed to sleep as a baby.
"Mommy," he spoke groggily. "I love you so much."
She huffed as it was relief to hear him say that.
"Mama, what do you miss most about him?"
"I miss his voice. I miss his voice telling me he loved me."
"Me too." Landon looked up at his mother with intent in his eyes. The same intense look that Zayn used to have.
"I miss the way that he would come home and scream 'What's everybody doing?!'" they quoted together.
"I miss the way he would tell me bedtime stories and the way he smelled."
"He loved telling you those stories," Jessie smirked.
"You know, Mom," he propped himself up on his elbow. "You can fall in love again. Daddy used to always say that you were a great girl."
She clicked her tongue, remembering his words. "I don't think I'll ever be able to love like that again."
She thought back to all of the memories, good and bad. Either way she thought about it, they were just memories and she couldn't keep herself to live in the past.
The little boy that was lying next to her was craving love, a love that she needed to give him.
More.
So much that it was like he always had Zayn with him.
"I really do love you, Landon. We can do this, I promise." She felt her cheeks burning with tears.
She adored the little man that was growing before her.
An adoration for what he was to become.
"I'm sorry for today," he spoke.
"I'm sorry for making you feel like I didn't love you. You're all I have baby and I love you."
"Do you promise you'll always love me, no matter what?" His eyes were searching.
"No matter what, babe."